Another day, another #moralpanic about Those #Kids These Days and all the #Crazy Stuff They Say On The #Internet.

Forty years ago (!) I was a fourteen-year-old #JROTC cadet, in the last great hot time of the #ColdWar, obsessed with reading #SoldierOfFortune. I was also an early adopter of what’s now called social media.

They were called bulletin board systems, or #BBSs for short. Usually somebody’s home computer with a few phone lines coming in. You’d dial the number, wait for the screech to come through the handset, slam the handset into the modem’s acoustic coupler, and … magic happened.

On the internet, nobody knows you’re a dog. But on BBSs, they sure knew you were a kid—the more so the more you tried to hide it. Not that many of the adults were much more mature, but I digress.

See, kids do kid things. In my case, as the abovementioned 14-year-old SOF-reading cadet, it was the signature I appended to every post: “Dan the Merc.”

There. That’s a thing you know now.

Can you imagine anything cooler? Anything tougher? Anything more ABSOLUTELY BADASS? Wait, don’t answer that. You in the back, stop snickering.

Relax. Kids grow up.

Another day, another #moralpanic about Those #Kids These Days and all the #Crazy Stuff They Say On The #Internet.

Forty years ago (!) I was a fourteen-year-old #JROTC cadet, in the last great hot time of the #ColdWar, obsessed with reading #SoldierOfFortune. I was also an early adopter of what’s now called social media.

They were called bulletin board systems, or #BBSs for short. Usually somebody’s home computer with a few phone lines coming in. You’d dial the number, wait for the screech to come through the handset, slam the handset into the modem’s acoustic coupler, and … magic happened.

On the internet, nobody knows you’re a dog. But on BBSs, they sure knew you were a kid—the more so the more you tried to hide it. Not that many of the adults were much more mature, but I digress.

See, kids do kid things. In my case, as the abovementioned 14-year-old SOF-reading cadet, it was the signature I appended to every post: “Dan the #Merc.”

There. That’s a thing you know now.

Can you imagine anything cooler? Anything tougher? Anything more ABSOLUTELY BADASS? Wait, don’t answer that. You in the back, stop snickering.

Relax. Kids grow up.

After all, if we’re relying on poverty to recruit young people, a reduction in child poverty could hurt #recruitment just as much as a free college education.

But hey, at least kids aren't forced into #military #indoctrination, right?

Oh...

#Freedom #JROTC #Pentagon #Empire #WhiteSupremacy #SystemicRacism

https://freethoughtblogs.com/oceanoxia/2023/01/17/military-indoctrination-forced-on-u-s-children/

"Trail of Tears - In discussing the history of how Native Americans were forced from their lands in the southeastern United States during the 1830s, a Marine Corps textbook describes what is widely known as the “Trail of Tears” as a “march” and a “trek” to lands west of the Mississippi River that spanned several months and thousands of miles. But the text omits any mention of the brutal reality of that mass removal: Thousands of Native Americans died along the way."

#Genocide #JROTC

"In introducing freshmen students to the idea of leadership, a Marine Corps textbook offers the Confederate general Robert E. Lee as an example to emulate. Lee, the textbook says, “showed, in his attitude and appearance at Appomattox, that he was an officer and a gentleman.”

#JROTC #RobertELee

". . .
But a textbook used in the Navy’s J.R.O.T.C. program offers a different analysis than either one of them, saying: “This amendment prevents the government from forbidding citizens to own weapons.”

#JROTC #Navy #SecondAmendment #GunViolence #Guns

"Two of the Navy’s textbooks examine why the U.S. military did not succeed in Vietnam, a failure that continues to be scrutinized and debated to this day. One section is titled “Restrictions Hinder Victory” and describes how political leaders limited who and where the military could bomb.

“According to many analysts, America lost the Vietnam War largely because of these limitations,” the other textbook says.

#JROTC #USMilitary

"Mr. Zunes noted that the textbook called it an “unfortunate incident” and downplayed the culpability of the U.S. military, saying the airliner had approached the Navy vessel “in what seemed to be a threatening manner.” But a Navy investigation found that the aircraft had been “on a normal climb” out of Iran and “within the established air route” toward Dubai."

#JROTC #Iran #USNavy #Navy

"A Navy textbook puts a defensive spin on a disastrous 1988 incident in the Persian Gulf, when a U.S. Navy missile cruiser shot down an Iranian passenger jet inside Iranian airspace. All 290 people aboard #IranAirFlight655 were killed. . .

#jrotc

"A Navy textbook describes the U.S. bombing of Libya in 1986, carried out in response to an attack at a dance club in Germany.
The U.S. conducted the bombing “with the agreement of most of its European allies,” it says. But Stephen Zunes, a professor at the University of San Francisco who specializes in Middle East politics and who reviewed excerpts from the J.R.O.T.C. textbooks, noted that Spain and France were so opposed to the bombing that U.S. flights had to go around their airspace." #jrotc

. . . “If a lady leaves the table at any time, the gentleman who seated her rises and assists with the lady’s chair,” the book says.

Army officials said in a statement that their pages were designed to “teach cadets about customs, courtesies and etiquette referring to military balls and other formal events.”"

#USArmy #JROTC #Feminism

ETIQUETTE: "A Marine Corps textbook tells female cadets that, in uniform, they should wear lipstick and shape their hair in an “attractive feminine style.”

In an era when women are fully integrated into combat jobs, an Army textbook details how men should not sit “until all the ladies at his table are seated.” It recommends that men help women sit down. . ."

#JROTC #Feminism

More on Drugs: "One textbook implies that Kurt Cobain died because of a heroin addiction, omitting the fact that it was a gun that ended his life."

#GunViolence #USMilitary #JROTC

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/11/us/jrotc-textbooks.html?unlocked_article_code=ccU42NjfS2fpotsB60V6zlo_kPvoOAmdsu_gsfsM8NjgmnLptfDvojWoIebSvUmHyEC1ljC3673uCdt5eF-T0cAsFMixf2tg7pDx44eEVlPwnH4tFdnd0YAiW-x6yvadGk9gMskb6w-urlQJBisntZMUYG6n_cu_x7fCS0AzMiq3iRMRTuXGEFzKJ9BEnSH54kIsjPjk3idNhqYBpTc33sXEhknQLVPbiVnCwWxgcVCX4_YRsZfTHSgXSpKFn5SgJ75R_AdtxfjJdhU9-lNcp8Fp4MgcN6cyYLpfyDW-Kf5VJDn6ZVyRbkKjn5avfvhGmPS1DEk&smid=share-url

Important story from the NY Times (link is to a "gifted"/non-paywall article) on the ways that #JROTC textbooks distort the real story of US history.

Shameful that the #USMilitary is not only breaking the law by forcing students in my locales to take JROTC classes against their will, but also by using said classes to share outright disinformation.

Read on in this thread for examples...

#DOD #USArmy #USMC #USNavy #USAF #Antiwar @antiwar #peace @peace

https://www.cnn.com/2022/12/18/us/military-recruitment-schools-minorities-reaj/index.html

#JROTC and many school districts that work with them are breaking the law, forcing students of color to enroll in #MilitaryRecruiting training to be able to graduate.

And... predictably it is #BIPOC students who are the most likely victims of this illegal forced indoctrination.

#Antiwar @antiwar
#USMilitary #ROTC

It’s time to abolish #JROTC. The military should not be in the business of recruiting minors.

The recent revelations about many schools in minority neighborhood requiring students to do JROTC are even more reason it has to go. https://rootsaction.salsalabs.org/abolish-jrotc

It’s time to abolish #JROTC. The military should not be in the business of recruiting minors.

The recent revelations about many schools in minority neighborhood requiring students to do JROTC are even more reason it has to go. https://rootsaction.salsalabs.org/abolish-jrotc

Rep. Ted Lieu (D-CA) quote tweets a New York Times article titled "Thousands of Teens Are Being Pushed Into Military’s Junior R.O.T.C.":

I was honored to serve on active duty in the US military. But forcing students to take military classes is wrong and anti-American. We are not an authoritarian country like Russia.

Any high school that automatically enrolls students in JROTC must rescind that policy immediately.

#JROTC #ROTC #Teens #Military
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/11/us/jrotc-schools-mandatory-automatic-enrollment.html

https://twitter.com/tedlieu/status/1601979542540689409

My FIL did 20 years in the US Army and my MIL worked as a civilian interpreter, but if I found out my kids' public school was requiring them to enroll in JROTC there would be 😤😡🤬🔥!
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JROTC programs in public high schools are supposed to be elective. But all around the US, thousands of students are automatically enrolled... especially in BIPOC and low income kids.

#military #jrotc #education #PublicSchools

https://www.chicagotribune.com/nation-world/ct-aud-nw-nyt-junior-rotc-chicago-20221212-k6b5kkgp4vhrxl5gq5uak4tioy-story.html

This is so vile. fuck the US government.

#jrotc #usa #rotc #Military